Blog

When reports surfaced last year that a guard at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Texas had sexually assaulted several detainees there, advocates familiar with the US’s immigration detention system were saddened, but not surprised. There has been a steady stream of news reports over the past several years of similar assaults on immigrants in custody.

When human rights advocates talk about providing humanitarian protection to vulnerable immigrants, they are usually concerned with threats to the health and well-being posed by other humans, whether they are security forces, gang members, or abusive spouses.